Elephant In The Room Culling Vs Coexisting

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Kahang may not be a household name, but wild elephants have placed this secluded town located just a half-hour drive away from Kluang, Johor, frequently in the headlines over the years.
I still remember reading a story on Kahang years ago where an elephant calf was hit on the highway by a speeding jeep at night. It died on the spot while the vehicle was left with a dent.
According to the news the next day, the calf was buried by the roadside. A few days later, a herd of wild elephants was spotted lingering around the accident site.
They did not want to leave and even chased after passing motorcyclists. It was as though they were grieving the loss of their calf and expressing their anger towards humans.
Last June, an adult female elephant and three male calves were found dead in a plantation east of Kahang. Mutated cells were found during the autopsy investigation, leading the Veterinary Department to believe that humans had poisoned these four elephants to death.
These cases of elephant poisoning indicate a growing frustration among locals, particularly farmers, over the ongoing human-elephant conflict.

One of them complained to me about the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan).
“They want us to coexist peacefully with the elephants, but these are not cows nor goats.
“I can’t chain them up, and the government won’t allow me to shoot and kill them, how exactly should I coexist with them?” the farmer who did not want to be named lamented.
From hunting to translocating
During the British colonial era and the early years of Malaysia’s independence, Perhilitan’s predecessor the Game Department (Jabatan Mergastua) would give out licenses for hunters to kill wild elephants that were destroying crops in Peninsular Malaysia.
Between 1960 and 1963, a total of 127 elephants were shot and killed. The number declined to 36 from 1970 to 1976.
As awareness of ecological conservation grew, the role of the Game Department shifted from governing hunting activities to becoming an agency focused on wildlife conservation and the management of national parks, which is what Perhilitan is today.
In 1974, it set up an Elephant Capture Unit and an elephant conservation centre. During this period, the government changed strategies in dealing with these crop-destroying elephants, opting for translocation to other forests instead of killing them.
Between 1974 and 2010, Perhilitan translocated more than 600 elephants at steep costs, averaging RM40,000 per elephant.
On top of that, according to a report by investigative journalism team R.age, frequent translocation activities increase the number of elephants within the same forests, which leads to herds competing for space and villagers risk coming into frequent contact with these animals.
A study showed that wild elephants undergo immense pressure after being translocated to a new forest. They spend significant time searching for familiar forest grounds, covering five times their usual roaming distance, which in turn reduces their time for mating and feeding.
In 2019, Perhilitan captured an elephant named Seluyut in the Kota Tinggi forest in the south of Johor. The elephant was mounted with a GPS tracker and translocated to the Lenggor forest, which is up north of the state.
Much to everyone’s surprise, Seluyut travelled 71km in just two weeks. Like an old hand who knows the ropes, he finally returned to his home.
Elephant translocation, as Perhilitan repeatedly pointed out, was their “last resort”. Based on the census conducted in 2011, there were about 1,223 to 1,677 wild elephants in Peninsular Malaysia, mainly found in Perak, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, and Johor.
These were the states where human-elephant conflict was frequently reported, with numerous fatalities, injuries, and financial losses.
If elephant translocation was no longer the primary option, what can the government do to handle future conflicts?
Fearful farmers leave fields untouched
As dusk fell over Kampung Sri Lukut in Kahang, villagers waited for the elephants to appear in the Sungai Semberong Felcra oil palm plantation.
It is replanting season; the air is thick with the scent of palm kernels, which draws elephants in herds to feed on the palms. There is no better time for the villagers to see their unfamiliar and mysterious neighbours up close.
Villagers waiting for elephants to appear in oil palm plantationA migrant worker who only wanted to be known as Ako was riding his motorcycle past the rubber plantation. When he turned his head, he caught a terrifying sight - a villager known as Misirah was being knocked down by an elephant.
He knew he could not confront the elephant alone. Without hesitation, he sped off to get help from Misirah’s husband, Sugianto Giman, and other villagers nearby.
Together, they rushed Misirah to the nearest hospital, hoping it wouldn’t be too late.
Sadly, medical staff pronounced Misirah dead at 8.20am. The report cited multiple injuries and internal haemorrhaging as the cause of death, including bilateral rib fractures, hemothorax, cardiac rupture, spinal fracture, and abdominal bleeding due to a lacerated liver.
Tales of the killer elephants haunted the village. As a witness to the tragic incident, Ako is shaken by the experience.
He could no longer harvest oil palm from dawn until dusk. Once the skies darken, he would leave the plantation without delay, unwilling to risk another encounter with wild elephants.
Anxious villagers called up Yusoff Ibrahim, the village chief, and asked: “What should we do?”
A lot of farms are left untended in Kampung Sri Lukut, said Yusoff.
Elephant intrusion is a problem, so instead of letting their work go to waste, villagers chose to leave their fields as is.
This problem is not unique to Kampung Sri Lukut. Many villages in Kahang have abandoned farmlands due to the wild elephants. These farmlands have since become unmarketable.
The village’s livelihood is “doomed”, for those lands once provided them with fruits and vegetables that they could either sell or consume.
“We have to get everything from the shops now,” the villagers said.
Link connecting two forests
One of the key long-term solutions outlined in Perhilitan’s National Elephant Conservation Action Plan 2023-2030’s (Necap 2.0) human-elephant coexistence plan is the Central Forest Spine (CFS) blueprint, which aims to reconnect fragmented forests and elephant habitats in Peninsular Malaysia through ecological corridors.
Nottingham University honorary associate professor Lim Teck Wyn conducted his doctoral studies on wild elephant issues and the environmental history of Peninsular Malaysia.
According to his analysis, the prevalence of human-elephant conflicts in Kahang can be attributed to its geographical location.
Kahang is in the centre of Johor. It serves as a key link between Endau Rompin National Park to the north and the Kota Tinggi forests to the south.
Frequent logging and land clearings have encroached upon the area, narrowing the corridor that was meant to connect the two forests.
“If you want to connect these two forest areas, you need to pass through the Kahang area. Kahang is between them.
"This is what is commonly referred to as the wildlife corridor, it allows wildlife to move from one area to another. In the long term, it is important because if the forests are disconnected, then the elephants can go extinct because of inbreeding," Lim said.
Lim cautioned that inbreeding could result in a loss of genetic diversity, which poses risks of disease within the elephant population.
Two forests covering 147,454ha were gazetted as wildlife reserves by the Johor government in 1933, based on the 1923 Johor Wildlife and Birds Protection Enactment.
Although the enactment prohibits hunting, it does not prevent the establishment of plantations and roads within the reserves, Lim said.
Take Mersing forest reserves as an example. While this area is a designated wildlife reserve, it still saw plantation developments and logging activities.
The 2022 Master Plan for Ecological Linkages Central Forest Spine, drafted by the Town and Country Planning Department, delineated four ecological corridors to connect the two forests mentioned above.
However, the department found that these proposed corridors had already been cleared for commercial plantation developments.
Lim believes that the state government should actively protect the forests along the ecological corridors. This would prevent development from severing the connection between these two forests.
Conservationist Lim Teck WynThese lands, however, are either government forests or private land, each with its own plans for development. The key question remains: will the state government be willing to pause development for conservation purposes?
The Town and Country Planning Department has recommended that the state government re-gazette government-owned forests as protected forest reserves. This could prevent the expansion of oil palm plantations, which would further encroach upon the surrounding forest areas.
For planted forests, however, micro-corridors must be established to link the forests, allowing elephants to move around safely.
There are concerns that some plantations might not adhere to the guidelines in building trenches or setting up electric fences, which could obstruct the elephants’ pathways.
“Can ecological corridors lessen the friction between humans and wildlife?
“A well-designed corridor can reduce conflict… but it requires careful planning to create a route that keeps wildlife away from conflict zones,” Lim explained.
Approaches to mitigating conflict
Lim advised the government to build bridges around the corridors to help wildlife cross roads safely and to prevent elephants from becoming roadkill.
The term used in conservation circles is wildlife crossings. Examples to learn from include the Eco-Link in Bukit Timah, Singapore or viaducts in Gerik, Perak, which allow elephants and other animals to safely pass through.
For the most part, Perhilitan has only placed signage along the roads to remind vehicles to slow down and safety instructions for wild elephant encounters.
The state government also set up 21 feeding areas in Kluang, Mersing and Kota Tinggi, planting banana trees and Napier grass to lure elephant herds away from oil palm plantations, preventing them from raiding farmlands for food when they are hungry.
The federal government launched the Elephant Electric Fence System, which involves setting up electrified fences around plantations to prevent wild elephants from breaking in, and the Elephant Alert System, which triggers an alarm to alert farmers when the mammals approach their plantations.
However, a villager only known as Mario told me that most villagers cannot afford to invest heavily in fences or dig trenches, as it is not economically viable for smallholders like them.
What we can learn from Africa and India is that the destruction of ecological corridors would lead to a surge in human-elephant conflicts.
The best solution at hand by far is to have plantation development companies set up ecological corridors while small plantation holders can collectively build electrical fences to keep the elephants away.
It is to be noted, however, that our peaceful coexistence with the elephants cannot rely solely on individual efforts; we need a more integrated plan for land development, which also requires a redistribution of land in terms of use.
Such ambitions were held by the CFS blueprint as it marked out areas with the potential to be developed into ecological corridors.
However, as these areas have been under development for years and connected to the commercial benefits of landowners and government institutions, how could we possibly convince them to involve themselves in the CFS plan, or even give up on their profits?
Loss of life on both ends
Three weeks after the elephant attack on Misirah, the villagers invited her husband to speak with me when I returned to the village for interviews.
Sugianto arrived on his motorcycle looking pale and weary but brought along two durians as treats.
He missed Misirah dearly. Wild elephants used to scare him, but after his wife’s passing, he was awash with a wave of complex emotions.
“I was just afraid of them last time. Now, I feel angry. But I could only walk away whenever I saw them. They are enormous, and we can do nothing,” he lamented.
I left the village contemplating Sugianto's words. The human-elephant conflict was driven by the fierce changes in our natural environment and the entanglements of land interests and power.
With the lack of capabilities to put a better solution in place, the people and wild animals are left to their own devices to endure the brutality of the other. - Mkini
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. This story was translated by Leong Jie Yu.

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